That’s is needed because they currently only have 3 sits listed worldwide and despite that they haven’t found sitters for those 3 sits since advertising last week !
This free six month offer isn’t on their Facebook page, website and their AI chat function doesn’t know about it ?
Perhaps you don’t see all the sits available if you are not a member.
Before we joined THS a big factor in our decision process was the fixed annual cost.
Whilst the fee per sit is currently only £9.00 I’m suspicious that this is just the thin end of the wedge.
A few aspects that really leave a sour taste in my mouth.
The way we’ve been strong armed into accepting the new terms & conditions if we want to access our profile.
The rationale given for introducing the fees is not credible. The growth in fee paying members makes the platform less expensive to run per member, not more expensive.
It’s just greed.
I would like to turn off auto renew, but as I have a sit straddling my membership renewal date THS are not allowing me to do so.
Unless THS get rid of the per sit fees I will have to seriously consider my continued membership, which is a shame as I like the service.
Have you expressed this on Trust Pilot yet @andytims?
I’ve just asked the owners of the website and they have told me the offer will go live later this week, with a marketing campaign. They are just putting a few website enhancements in place first.
This was news directly from the website owners. I’ve just asked the owners of the website again this morning and they have told me the offer will go live later this week, with a marketing campaign. They are just putting a few website enhancements in place first. I’ll let you know when I see it live.
The ethics? One could argue that you are against the booking fees or planning to leave “on principle” or because you don’t feel the site is a good value, but you are “promoting” the site by offering the code.
One could counter that you are not in saying anything dishonest about the site or actually promoting it, but instead simply offering a discount to people already looking for it and planning to join.
I’ve heard that some people turning off auto-renew have been offered upgrades to premium for the same price.
If you are worried about already booked sit disappearing, you could simply contact the owner and let them know what’s going on and that you will absolutely join and take the sit but the sit may show as cancelled as you experiment to see if this will work.
Alternatively, you could try calling member services and insisting on getting a person and seeing if they could make you this offer so it won’t disrupt anything. I don’t know that that will work, but I’ve found that member services for many companies will do what they can to get you to rate them highly on survey.
You could put this off by dropping your member code somewhere on the internet where people look for codes (google is your friend) and putting off the renewal date, and the fees for a while.
No - Do you think it would help?
@andytims When the booking fee was announced, in a matter of a couple of days, THS received MANY one star reviews on Trust Pilot, taking its ranking down from 4.4 to 3.6. THS is not going to back down, but they certainly have felt the backlash. Members are still posting negative reviews on Trust Pilot re this and other issues.
Regarding your suggestion no.1, only a homeowner can cancel a sit. I was in this situation where I couldn’t turn off auto renew because I had a sit confirmed. I contacted the homeowner and explained the situation. As we had sat for them before and they trust us, they have cancelled the sit. Let’s just say they now have another arrangement in place 
I know how it works with cancellations. I’m not sure what happens if you turn off autorenew and there is a sit scheduled for afterwards. I would assume the sytem would cancel you and let the homeowners know you are no longer available, but I don’t know.
That’s why I suggested letting them know this might happen.
No, it doesn’t work like that. The system just prevents you from turning off autorenew; so, basically if you already have a sit booked beyond your renewal date it forces you to renew. The option to turn off auto renew is disabled. The only way out is to get the sit cancelled and only then can you turn off auto renew.
As a host I was outraged that the company would only let me access my account by agreeing to the new terms and conditions BEFORE I could read them. I don’t know of ANY company that would even try that. I would cancel my subscription to any company that did. Never has happened, and no company would practice business this way (Apart from THS).
However, they receive many very positive 5-star reviews, and these reviews are in the majority (86%).
Many (and I mean many) were posted pre - pandemic @Solela when THS sent the reminder email after a sit to members to write a review after receiving 5*. There was a link to do this which actually went to Trust Pilot so many of those 5* reviews are actually the reviews given by an owner or sitter to each other and not reviewing the actual company. Members brought this underhanded practice up and, as a result, reviews on Trust Pilot are now mostly about the company.
For good reason. For what it’s worth, THS issued an apology about the glitchy rollout of the new Terms that prevented members from reading them before agreeing to them. THS said it was due to a software issue and was not intentional. In several cases members refused to agree, they demanded a refund and got one.
People who are not currently members cannot know the truth.
you could ask the home owner of your sit which straddles your membership renewal date if they would be happy doing it off site? if they say yes, as 2 of mine have done, you can then cancel auto renew. (one of mine has already cancelled their membership too) For some home owners, your number of reviews, your status/reputation/trust level is more important to them than your membership of a site.
Not true. You can arrange with the pet owners to cancel the sit officially via the site, but there is absolutely nothing stopping you both from agreeing to still do the sit privately.